Talk:United States of America/@comment-3390488-20160923194945
Superior, this is nearly three years late to this, but I've gotta say, you've done a really good job pointing out the actual themes that take place in the story itself. I think a lot of the articles written here are written out in ways that paint certain actions and countries (all of them) in lights that are sometimes unfair, and sometimes too fair, and a lot of it seems to be from actions being touched on without the context being taken into consideration. The Soviet Union rightfully deserves the flak it gets because on a level of morality, the USSR was...well, it was pretty fucked up. I don't think anyone would look at Joseph Stalin's reign and be like "Oh yeah, that guy, he's a real humane, good-hearted, decent human being." A lot of North Korea's crimes-against-humanity bullshit is not very original, you know; a lot of it is copy-pasted from the cult of personality in regards to Stalin. The communist party was the bourgeoise that Marx warned against, with everyone who wasn't in The Party's upper ranks being the proletariat. The USSR was the very pinnacle of the antithesis for that which it supposedly stood for. While the people are in line for bread, the party leaders are knocking back $500 bottles of vodka and chowing down on fine caviar. The USSR is portrayed as a shit, because it WAS a shit. The Chinese pulling the whole "We can go it alone!" thing and only asking for UN help when the situation is way out of hand fucks over the UN, Japan, and US when they go in, because the situation they were going into was MUCH worse and much more dangerous and far more difficult to contain than if the Chinese had gotten their overpopulated heads out of their asses and gone "Hey, those guys all have guns, maybe we should ask if they'll help shoot these giant spess bugs so we don't fehl teh CommParty?" And inevitably, it works out for nobody. And given how China acts nowadays, yeah, I can see that, too; they very much have a "go it alone" mindset, which shows in their distinct lack of international allies despite their economic power base that would make such alliances rather enticing for others to participate in. The US and Japan, amusingly, actually are the nations in the series that are ragged on or glorified too much the most, but in truth, they are uniquely suited to standing side-by-side and complementing each other in ways that the other nations simply are not. Yes, they piss about with each other, yes, they dick each other over, but as the chronologically-lattermost era shows, when the chips are down, America's guns and Japan's blades are fighting as one against the French and Canadians (the former of whom are just pure assholes, and the latter of whom do actually have legit gripes) and the BETA. Now for that context stuff. For America's negatives: 1: America is willing to cut Alaska in half with nuclear mines (the Warhammer 40,000 fan in me gets misty-eyed at the thought of so much ordnance causing so much geological damage~) if the BETA reach the border between the USSR-Alaska and the US-Alaska. 2: American forces turn and leave Japan to fight the BETA on their own in the middle of the BETA invasion reaching a critical stage. 3: The US opts for the stealthy F-22 over the not-stealthy but more anti-BETA-capable F-23. 4: The US drops G-bombs for days, son. 5: The US is willing to sacrifice other nations wholesale if it means keeping the BETA off American soil. 6: American TSFs typically have middling melee abilities with (seemingly) too much emphasis on range and guns. 7: BETAs under Yukon Base 8: Infinities ''deployed away from Yukon Base during RLF attack very conveniently, out destroying Soviet G-bomb facilities For Japan: 1: 'YAMATO DAMASHII' 2: Japanese TSFs typically have middling ranged weaponry with (seemingly) too much emphasis on CQC and melee weapons. 3: The Japanese never really participated in many conflicts on the mainland, not in any particularly tide-turning way, at least. 4: The Japanese are too idealistic when it comes to trying to defend their homeland. 5: Japan's political factions are clearly influenced by ultranationalists who are dangerously close to sounding like they have China's attitude towards international assistance. 6: The Shogunate does shit that sacrifices civilian lives by the thousands more than once. Context, America: 1: If the BETA reach that line, the USSR is fucked anyway. The BETA would be coming from the Siberian Peninsula to Alaska, from west to east, sweeping their way towards US-Alaska. If the BETA are at Red Shift, there's no saving USSR-Alaska anyway. If the roles were reversed, the USSR would do the exact same thing, as would any other nation, because it's better to sacrifice your (now-being-devoured) rivals to save hundreds of millions of your own peoples' lives than to...not. 2: US forces by that point had far more combat experience than the Japanese military. They understood what a BETA invasion entailed, and how it progressed. They had seen, first-hand, what happens when you stubbornly try to hold a position. The US military, additionally, strongly follows the maxims of Sun Tzu's "Art of War." He who defends everything defends nothing. The US understood this, and recommended the Japanese sacrifice some of their population centers in order to take up superior defensive positions that would be far more effective in fighting off the BETA, but they didn't. The Japanese twice told them to fuck themselves, and each time, the Japanese forces were torn apart and routed, with nothing gained to show for it either time. So when the Imperial Army told them to hold position at yet another unteneble defensive line, of COURSE the US military was going to go "you know what, no, fuck this, you're children playing at war, if you can't take this seriously, we're out. Deal with it on your own." The US had nothing to gain by helping Japan; Glorious Land of Nipponaru's military forces are comparatively small, largely inexperienced, and with an inefficient command structure that has different military factions answering to different command sources, which plays hell with battlefield cohesion. A single US pilot dying on Japanese soil to fight the BETA is a mother, father, sister, brother, son, daughter, that their life was lost fighting to protect a nation that once launched a sneak attack on us and resulted in us being at war for with them for almost half a decade. How popular would supporting the defense of Japan be back home in this kind of world in which everyone is afraid the BETA will be on their doorstep to eat you alive soon? The question of "Why?" would come up a lot...and the answer "a treaty we signed" won't satisfy anyone. 3: ...And the Soviets try to set up a situation in which the Japanese have to leave a high-powered prototype weapon behind to evacuate, so that the Soviets can come in and steal it, and that weapon sure as fuck can be turned against more than the BETA. Why would Japan and the UN be against sharing the information on the weapon with the Soviets? After all, the Soviets are in the war against the BETA too, right? We can trust them with that kind of weaponry...right? France, a country that America took millions of refugees in for and that battalions of American pilots gave their lives trying to fight the BETA off from, attacks the US after the US G-bombs the Hives out of desperation to save the human race. Canada sure as hell benefitted from American military protection during the war, and hell, they were the US's closest ally for a long time and they're just as ready to go on a war of extermination against the US when the BETA are STILL a threat. Japan is consistently indicating it doesn't want to work with the US at all, and it's not like they didn't attack the US off-guard before... Hell, the Soviets were also ready to ''assassinate the head of a UN TSF development project, and they were willing to sacrifice a US-UN-Japan joint TSF development test pilot, who was an elite US Air Force pilot no less, to MAYBE get their berserking psilots under control... Yeah, suddenly the need to have eyes watching everything from the shadows makes a bit of sense, doesn't it? With friends like these, after all, who needs enemies? The F-23 might've been more hive-combat-capable, but it wasn't nearly as useful against other TSFs...and clearly, the US knew that a time would probably come where they would need that particular edge. Given the events at the end of Total Eclipse, it seems that bit of planning was a smart move. 4: ...Was anything else working?? Did humanity have the military resources to attack and destroy every single Hive, when the nations not taken over by the BETA were down to a mere handful, thus depriving the remaining nations of all those nations' natural resources, many of which might not be readily available in their own borders, when the military casualties by this point and the resource expenditure of war with the BETA was how high, again? He who defends everything defends nothing. 5: I'm sure no other nation on Earth would do the same. But beyond that bit of obviousness, at that point, the US was the only economic base still at fully-strength, and it, fittingly, was called the Armory of the World. In a Total War situation such as the one with the BETA, say you have a massive stockpile of weaponry and supplies within this big fortress housing an entire army. But then, you have these ten metropolitan cities full of hundreds of millions of civilians. You can only protect the cities, or the fortress, because focusing all your efforts on protecting the cities means the fortress is vulnerable to being attacked, destroyed, and its supplies turned against you. In Total Warfare, where making a strategic error means annihilation, what do you choose to protect? The fortress. Because that's the cold, bitter calculus of war. It's not pretty, it's not honorable, it's not nice. It's war. And even then, the US, in this regard, STILL tried to protect those metaphorical (and literal, I guess) cities. In fact, it's elite shock troops, the Marines, were the first on the ground, ahead of the UN, ahead of the BANZAAAIII NOBLE SAMURAI KATANA YAMATO DAMASHII Japanese, to fight and die on foreign soil to protect nations not their own. Of course you could say "but it was also under their own interests, since fighting war over there kept the BETA away from them," but I'll get into that a little later. 6: When your enemy's strength is its vast numbers and close-combat capabilities as well as its EXTREMELY powerful long-ranged attack, keeping your fucking distance is kind of a good idea. Whereas if you go into melee, the odds of you being swarmed and overwhelmed are extremely high. Even if some pilots can be incredibly skilled at melee to the point they can avoid being swamped and can become tarpit-busters, it's far more effective to steadily draw back and keep fields of fire on your targets, while flanking and "rolling up" concentrations of enemies. And when it comes to the laser-classes, maybe developing a very, very powerful long range weapon to take out the BETA's laser classes would be effective in removing them as a threat...something like....I dunno...a rifle of some kind...something that's got lots of accuracy? Lots of range...maybe a very powerful optic system, perhaps one that can scan through obstacles... Oh, yeah, a sniper rifle! A sniper rifle for TSFs! Maybe it could have an X-ray system or something, maybe it could be a very powerful railgun with kinetic penetrator rounds that can go through entire mountains to skullfuck their targets in their big, giant eyes! "But swords are cooler!" So is your body temperature after it's been drained of all of its blood. Guess what'll keep that from happening, though? A FUCKING GUN. 7: To be honest, having BETA in captivity *THIS* close to the Red Line is pretty damn stupid. And honestly, I cannot see this being a thing anyone with military knowledge would approve of. Maybe having them further inland, or at least away from the fucking Red Line (yes, I'm calling it Red Line, deal with it). Arctic bases exist, I hear... As for the act of keeping BETA in captivity...well, you gotta study these fuckers somehow. First step to defeating your enemy is to know your enemy; more Sun Tzu. Sure, it's dangerous, but the worst that happens is they break out and cause casualties (although maybe the casualties wouldn't have been nearly so bad at Yukon if it hadn't been for those Jeebus's Army bible humpers...and by maybe, I mean definitely) and you have armed forces on standby to deal with things if that happens. But they seemed to have had them pretty secured, all things considered. 8: If the US allowed the attack to happen just to destroy Soviet G-bomb facilities in the confusion...wait, why do you need the confusion and chaos of the attack? The F-22A and EMDPh.2 had sophisticated stealth and jamming systems. By that point, the US already had G-bombs. Why not make a microscaled version of a G-bomb, like a G-grenade, equip four F-22EMDPs with them, have them stealth out to the facilities, jam their comms, arm the bombs, and blow the facilities like that? "Well shit, Russia, looks like you guys were fuckin' about with some shit and someone at your facilities decided to have all the facilities perform a test on what they had so far and it was a colossal fucking failure. Better luck next time."'' No detection, no transmissions, no proof of American involvement, and no pointless sacrifice of billions of dollars of military weaponry and hundreds of lives and pilots and the danger of these terrorists releasing classified intel that makes you look bad and causes severe international backlash! It's almost like nobody in a position of command in a Total Warfare world against an inhuman enemy would think of doing this. ...Of course, then again, the person who suggested this is ''a Russian, the same one who was thinking of assassinating Jellui Takamura for...raisins. Master-plan raisins. Also implying that Pearl Harbor was such an instance, even though that, too, would have meant that the US could have retaliated; just because you stop an attack doesn't mean the attack didn't happen and it doesn't make you any less the victim; it just makes you the victim that fought off the attack. That conspiracy theory is old and stupid. Japan's comes next, in a reply post.